One form of a positive delivery knife sheath is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,841,541 issued Oct. 15, 1974 to William T. Griffis. Griffis discloses a hunting knife having a blade and a handle enclosed within an outer sheath of sufficient length to cover both the blade and the handle to prevent the knife from being accidently removed from the sheath. An inner sheath extends about the blade of the knife and a thong is attached to the inner sheath and extends through a longitudinally extending slot in the outer sheath. The thong is pulled along the slot to move the handle beyond the outer sheath when it is desired to remove the knife from the sheath.
U.S. Pat. No. 1,388,073 issued Aug. 16, 1921 to N. G. Stewart discloses a cigarette case including a flap foldable over the top of a pack of cigarettes. A ribbon has one end secured to the inner front wall of the case and its other end secured to the inner face of the flap. The ribbon is long enough to extend around a pack of cigarettes and the pack of cigarettes can be drawn from the pocket by pulling on the end of the ribbon attached to the inner face of the flap.
A similar construction is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,212,689 to Woolfolk, except that the ribbon or retractor strip is not attached to the flap in Woolfolk.
Thus, in both Stewart and Woolfolk it is necessary to perform two steps prior to actual removal of the contents of the case; (1) raise the flap, and (2) manipulate the ribbon or retractor strip to elevate the contents of the case into position to be grasped. Similarly, two steps are necessary in Griffis. First, the thong must be manipulated to present the handle of the knife beyond the outer sheath and then the handle must be grasped to remove the blade from the inner sheath.
According to the present invention, only one motion is required to simultaneously remove the cover from the knife and positively present the knife for grasping and removal from the sheath.